Lustra: Episode 5 - Time Is Gonna Come
by agelade
Summary: Episode 5 in Lustra, a Supernatural Season 9 AU. With Sam back in action, the boys take on a hunt: there's a girl, there's a bad guy, and of course there's some danger. But can Dean keep his head in the game when all he can think about is Abaddon's phone call? Fifth in a series - best to read them all in order!
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Hey guys. I know it's been a while, over a month! School started back up, and this semester is a workshop semester; I have to produce actual pages of prose and apparently they want it to be like… good. I've been spending my creative currency in that venue lately. But! Without further delay, here's episode five!**

* * *

**Episode Five**  
"**Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter One**

_**THEN**_

"_We got good news yesterday, in case you forgot. Your little brother doesn't have to die to close the gates. We figure out what his greatest sacrifice is, close the gates, he gets better, no one dies. But you're what, sad because for like an hour he didn't _love _you?"_

_..._

_A thump of something onto his bed, the zip of his backpack or duffel, rummaging, and then a lid was being screwed off of something and Dean opened his eyes a slit to see Sam with his back to him, arm up as he downed a shot of something, and-_

_..._

_"Who are the others?"_

_Who are the others... in Sam's head? Lucifer, and Cas maybe. Along with Sam. And now John Dee. Clearly it was too much for Sam's noggin, because blood came trickling down from his nose in a sudden thick dark stripe and Dean's heart seized up._

_"You must discover their true names. The Wise Men. The doers of Good and Evil. You must. You are on the path." Sam's face actually showed an emotion then, as the ghost of John Dee beseeched Dean to pursue whatever his own unfinished business was that kept him tied to earth._

_..._

_Death shrugs, smiles at him like a grandfather. "It means, short of letting him die, Sam's already living his best case scenario, and that's with you, broken head and all. He's the Job of his generation, Dean. He's lucky to have you. As I recall, Job had no one by the end."_

_**NOW**_

"You know, I hauled that big-ass desk upstairs for a reason."

Sam didn't even look up from the notepad he was scribbling in, at the conference table in the war room. "I'm fine, Dean."

Dean swigged from his bottle, stayed put in the doorway from the kitchen. He watched Sam tap at his laptop, write another thing down. Kid had been working non-stop in the week since the surprise birthday thing, he seemed better, ish. No need, Dean thought, to bring up the whole Abaddon thing. Not yet. Not when Sam was just starting to feel better. Yeah. Give him another nice full week of feeling good before dropping that bomb, if it even needed to be dropped.

Because the answer to Abaddon's little offer was no. Always no. In fact, it did not bear thinking about.

"Where're the kids?"

Sam frowned into space. "Uh... Kevin's out getting groceries with Crowley. Cas is... I think he's with that angel lady, actually."

Dean's brows went up in surprise, as much at the prophet and demon palling around as he was at Cas' bull by the horns approach to human sex-ed. "I hope you gave Cas the birds and bees, dude."

"I thought you did that on your wild, wacky trip to the friendly neighborhood brothel."

Whoa, with the hostility. But then again, he'd spent that whole trip laughing at Cas' antics and making light of how long it'd been since he'd had fun with Sam, while Sam had apparently been dream-tripping Lucifer, working in a bar somewhere. Kid was probably jealous. And of course, that moment was sorta permanently carved into his memory, Sam saying he'd go off on his own, get straight, so serious, and looking back it was clear that it had been a test, a test Dean had failed; Sam had wanted him to fight, Sam had wanted Dean to tell him he didn't want him to go.

And the problem was that, at the time, Dean had been so pissed and disappointed, he hadn't even cared. He saw it was a test even then, and he just hadn't had the energy. Hoo boy, okay. Subject change.

"Kevin and Crowley, huh?"

Sam shrugged. "Kevin's a good kid, Dean. He isn't like us."

"What, like he's not jaded like us? He hasn't been completely screwed over a thousand times, like us?"

Sam's face was unreadable for a moment, then he sighed and went back to his notebook. "Yeah, something like that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" And he hadn't meant it to sound so accusatory, but he saw the set of Sam's shoulders stiffen up and well, fuck, fine.

"Nothing. Listen, we got a call. I think we have a case."

"A case? You just got out of that sling like yesterday."

"Which means I'm good to go," Sam said.

"Then we can investigate the men from the Federal BI?" Cas said, coming in from the library.

"The... What?" Sam said.

"Jesus, Cas."

"The F is for 'federal'," Cas informed Sam. He took a seat at the conference table and looked at Dean. "The F is for 'federal.'"

"Uh," Sam said, and he nearly looked like he was about to laugh, so you know, little victories. "Yeah, we know. Listen-"

"They took you, Sam. And you." Cas looked at Dean but it was brief, turned his attention back to Sam. Yeah, Cas didn't spare much more than a glance his way anymore, and while yeah, okay, Dean was more or less pissed at him for virtually everything he'd ever done, the last thing he wanted was this intense OCD angel-focus on his little brother.

"Cas, we looked into this, man," Dean said. "We couldn't find anyone in town who fit your description-"

"But we _did_ get nailed in wherever, on the way to Boston," Sam said. "And Feds took our files, and broke into my computer, _and_ there were all those cops waiting for us at the mausoleum."

"Death said Enoch had protection. Maybe that's all it was," Dean said.

"Enoch had _government_ protection?"

Dean shrugged.

"Okay... then why did they let us go so easily?" Sam shifted. "I don't - really remember that much."

"No shit," Dean said. "You were uh... pretty out of it." Sam looked at him, expectant. "Look, I told you, dude. They let me sweat for a few hours, then the Fed came and asked me some questions, then they took me to you, and we got out of there."

"That reminds me. We have the key, right?" Sam asked.

"Y...eah? Why?"

"Because Death wanted Enoch for a reason, and I want to figure out what my life cost us, or the world, or whatever."

"Whatever it was-"

"It was worth it, sure. Whatever. But we should probably try to figure out what's coming."

"Why does something have to be coming?"

Sam looked at him, like _seriously?_ and said, "Uh, because we're involved? And because nothing is free? And since when do I have to tell you that? We both know what it means to make a deal, man. You made this deal with Death, and we need to deal with the fallout. I, for one, would like a heads-up this time."

"Okay, okay, sheesh."

Cas nodded. "So the Federal-"

"FBI, Cas. Just FBI, okay?" Dean said. "And yeah, fine, whatever. But we can't exactly investigate them, can we. We'll have to just be on the look out. And we will, okay?" Dean caught Cas' eye, waited for him to nod. "Hey, I thought you were hanging out with that angel chick-"

"Lethaniel. We were... 'hanging out.' Yes, that's accurate."

"Uh..."

Dean looked at Sam, saw the flush creeping up his neck, grinned. "You mean _you_ were hanging out. Right?"

"Uh... yes. For a moment."

"Oh my god," Sam groaned.

"And then I was not-"

"Oh my _god_." Sam put his head down on the table, buried his face in his arms.

Cas looked at him in alarm. "Are you all right, Sam?"

Dean laughed. "I'm glad _someone_ is getting some on the regular."

"Yes, it has been very regular. My vessel- er, body - appears to be able to engage in copulation approximately once every three hours or so. Lethaniel's vessel may engage in copulation whenever she desires it." He tilted his head in thought. "It seems unfair. It is very different from angel intercourse."

Dean raised a brow. "I thought you didn't knock boots."

"I said I hadn't had occasion. It does happen."

"Guys. We have a case-" Sam said.

"Sure you're up for that?"

Sam didn't look up, but his tone was stern. "_Yes_. Unless _you_ don't want to work for some reason."

Dean frowned. He hadn't actually thought about it much, beyond a fleeting thought that maybe _Sam_ had wanted to hunt, which he clearly did. And yeah, okay, maybe a part of him, a large part, wanted to get his machete sunk deep into some fugly's neck, sure. But another part of him couldn't help but picture Sam chained up in a dungeon, and the pumping adrenaline, and the singing in his muscles, and the memory carved into his bones, the satisfaction, the pleasure of creating pain-

But uh.

"Course I wanna hunt," he said. Drank his beer. Needed something stronger. "I'm just-"

"Worried about me. Nothing changes." Sam rolled his eyes and looked so exasperated and refocused on his laptop like the petulant little brother and Dean grinned, okay, just a little.

"Damn right, it doesn't. So what do we got?"

"Came in on the landline - we still don't know how that number got out, huh?"

Dean shrugged. "When Henry tried to make a call on my cell phone, he asked for the operator."

Sam chewed on a lip, in thought. "So someone updated the system after Henry vanished-"

"But everyone died."

"Except Larry."

"Blind Larry took the time to update the bunker's telephone lines after everyone was dead?"

Sam shrugged. They were quiet a moment.

"Anyway," Sam said. "The call came in-" He thumbed at the phone on the wall over by the massive ancient communications station. "A girl named Erica, says she found her brother wandering the streets, missing his memory."

Dean lifted a brow, drank. "What's supernatural about that?"

"Doctors can't find anything medically wrong with him, Erica says he's been steadily losing more. Kid says someone 'took' his memories."

"Kids say the darnedest things," Dean said. He shook his head. Sam was _literally_ a day out of that sling, probably too early considering what the doctor had said - taking Sam into town had been a trick, yeah, but the doc had been real, had said some stuff about how poorly Sam was healing not just the shoulder, but the black eye, the brittle bone, the hairline fracture, the flutter he heard in Sam's heart, and maybe the worst thing was how absent Sam had been the whole time, following simple instructions but completely checked out of the whole thing. Sam had no idea how beat up he really was.

"I don't know, Sammy-"

"She's desperate, Dean. She offered to pay us. It's two hours away. We need to check this out."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Fine. I guess I can get behind someone worried about her little brother. God knows I know what that's like."

Sam knit his brows and gave him this _look_. "He's her _older_ brother, Dean. You guys don't have the monopoly on desperate, okay?"

"Okay, sheesh." Dean blew out a breath, but Amelia's words rang around in his head: _so he's been fighting back?_ and he just had to take Sam's bitchfest as a good sign. "So how'd we get on her radar?"

"Said her uncle told her we could help. I never heard of the guy. Russell Etole ring a bell to you?"

Dean shook his head. "Not even a little. Okay, we're burning daylight. If we leave now, we can get a room and start right and early in the am. Get your stuff together, you can fill me in on the rest in the car."

* * *

"Thanks, Kevin. I'll let you know if I find anything." Sam hung up the phone and sighed at the road, twenty minutes now out of Beatrice, Nebraska. He didn't drive anymore. Once upon a time, they had taken turns, but now there was too much risk that he'd have a dizzy spell and run them into a tree.

So why was he rushing them into a hunt?

Sam glanced over at Dean, saw him smiling there, singing softly to the music, tapping on his steering wheel. He pressed the gas, and maybe it was the trials power singing in Sam's blood, but he thought he could feel the rush of the road traveling from the rumbling engine up into Dean's foot, his leg, his body, energizing him.

Dean needed the road. Why the hunt? For the look on Dean's face, for the tapping of his fingers on the steering wheel, for that old carefree Dean who never deserved a weight like Sam around his neck. Despite the ache, Sam smiled a little.

"What?"

Sam blinked, cleared his throat. "Uh, Kevin says they're working on a sort of spiritual prophylactic-"

"Ghost condom?"

"Uh, basically. I told him the basic area of the archives to look in, and I've got some of my notes here. It's been done before, but this case is a little special. We need the spirit to have _some_ power, or else the key won't be able to light up the photographs. But we have to protect Kevin from possession. And we know tattoos won't work."

"And why is that again?"

Sam got the distinct impression that Dean didn't care so much as he was just trying to engage Sam in conversation he thought Sam would enjoy. Fine. Sam would bite. He watched the lights of the small town approach them against the black starry sky.

"Demons and angels, stuff we can ward against - they aren't human. Okay, demons started out that way, but they are physically and spiritually different from humans. Our souls are- different."

"Different enough that it took an eight hour blood ritual to get Crowley even as close to human as he is now."

Sam nodded, shrugged off the lingering sting of failure. "But ghosts are just manifestations of human souls. It's a thousand times more difficult to protect against them, because our bodies are their natural hosts. Usually it doesn't matter; it takes a _lot_ of energy for a ghost to possess someone, usually on the order of a vengeful spirit kind of manifestation-"

"Okay. Glad I asked."

"If you didn't want to know-"

"How do you even know all this?"

"It's all ghost physics, basically."

"Right," Dean said. He pulled the car into a parking lot and scanned the sparse population of cars. "Okay, we're here. Why don't you go get us a room, and I'll unload the trunk-"

"I can unload the trunk, Dean."

Dean turned to him, that _look_ on his face. "Don't get pissy with me, dude. I know you can. This isn't about that."

"Well then what's it about, Dean?"

Dean stared at him, then laughed just once. He put the car into park and said, as they got out, "I'm trying to be nice to you, Sam- Don't give me that face. I'm not saying I'm being a nice guy by not rubbing your face in crap. I'm saying, I'm trying to ... to help you. But if you wanna be a little bitch about it-"

"_Help_ me?"

Dean looked at Sam over the roof of the car like they were a completely different pair of brothers, brothers who'd never called each other weak or unreliable or untrustworthy or undeserving. Like he was shocked Sam might have some trouble believing him.

"Yeah, dude. Maybe you missed it, but you just got over a serious case of the crazies, and you've still got the Flu from hell. Er, heaven. Whatever. I know you can unload the car, dude. You think I'd even let you _near_ a hunt otherwise?"

"Wait, _let_ me-?"

Dean shook his head, put his hands up in surrender. "Fine. Whatever. I'm just trying to help you. Carry whatever you want."

Sam leaned against the car. And even though his blood boiled at the insinuation that he needed Dean's permission, that Dean would condescend to _help_ him- he had to admit that even the argument had taken his breath from him. "Dean, wait."

Dean rustled around in the trunk, cursing under his breath. Probably looking for their most reliable IDs and the least battered credit card. Or just making a show of being pissed. Whatever. Sam took a step. "Dean, man-" And cascaded into a coughing fit that had him grabbing the backdoor handle for support.

A moment later, Dean's boots entered his field of vision, Dean's warm heavy hand on his back - _a balm, it had always been a balm, if only Dean had known how the coughing stopped as soon as his hand was on Sam's back, Sam thought Dean might never have let him go_ - Sam caught his breath and stood back up, leaned against the car.

"I got this stuff," Dean said, but his eyes were hard, glittered in the streetlights. He shoved Sam's bag at him. "You can get us a room _and_ carry your own shit." And he was stomping back round to the trunk to load up his arms.

Sam blew out a breath. Shouldered his bag, headed with the credit card and matching ID to the front office and it occurred to him about halfway across the parking lot that his bag was a lot lighter, that the can of salt had been removed, that his box of shells didn't sit heavy in the bottom, that there were no bony spines of books jutting from anywhere, and at first the anger came hot and he whirled to storm back over to Dean and tell him not to touch his stuff, tell him that he could be trusted with a gun, but the world spun, just a little. Not enough to tilt him over. Just enough to remind him.

That this pack was his and he was carrying it, but he didn't have to carry everything, even if it belonged to him in the end. That Dean hadn't taken his only means of defense, and what he had taken, he'd just borrowed for a while, so that Sam didn't have to carry more than he had to. That when it came down to it, Dean was always going to at least _try_ to take on whatever of Sam's he could.

That he knew better, okay, that accepting help didn't mean you were weak. Hadn't he told Dean that a million times?

He met Dean at the room and slid the keycard into the door. Dean had everything except Sam's lightened load, and Sam found that he was grateful.

Dean clapped him on the shoulder on his way to the bathroom. It hurt, a good kind of hurt, a robust, _you can take this_ kind of hurt. Dean must have seen him smiling. "Done being a little bitch?" he said, and Sam rolled his eyes.

He woke up to Dean shaking him. Swallowed tang out of his mouth, washed a hand over his face, jaw, blinked into the light.

"Get up and get ready for bed, Goliath. It's too soon to sleep in your clothes. We haven't even killed anything yet."

"Was I - Did I-?" Dean was looking at him like he was trying to translate Sam into English. Sam started again. "I wasn't dreaming?"

Dean raised a brow, came over to him as he rubbed a towel through his hair, looked concerned. "No, why? I mean, were you?"

Sam searched his memory. He felt light. He felt like nothing. He raised his brows back at Dean, surprised. "No. I guess I wasn't."

"I take it from your amazement we're calling that a good thing?"

Sam breathed a laugh. "Yeah. A really good thing."

Dean nodded. "Good. Oh, Kevin called. Says he's got a lead on your ghostly rubber, but you need to sort through some stuff to ... blah blah blah. Call him back yadda yadda."

Sam sat up blinking, nodding. "Yeah, yeah I will." He yawned. Dean hit him in the face with a dry towel. "Thanks."

"I'll order grub. Triple deep fried beef burger with extra bacon, right?"

"Gross, Dean." Dean laughed and perused the take-out menu, and before Sam closed the door to the bathroom, he said, "Dean, you know 'prophylactic' just means protection from-"

Dean looked up. The warm smile stopped Sam from finishing his thought. Dean winked. "I know what it means, Sammy."

* * *

Tuesdays had become movie nights. None of them had jobs, which was a perk, Kevin guessed, for having no friends and no life.

But movie nights weren't a perk, not anymore. Not now that Cas was snuggled with Lethaniel on the big couch and Crowley was glaring daggers, muttering about vultures and other bird-related things. And Kevin couldn't even focus on the movie - The Big Lebowski, which he'd never seen but had been told it was a classic - because he was constantly trying to work out a ritual in his head for a ghost shield. It was almost like math - actually, it was _really_ like math, because math had been like a second language to him once upon a time when things like that had mattered. But now, tablets and codes were like a second language to him, and he was working out that math in his head even as Jeff Daniels or Bridges or whoever that was walked around in a bathrobe sounding totally stoned.

He needed help. He pulled out his phone and wrote a text.

_You got a sex?_

A moment later, his phone pinged and he laughed out loud and texted back: _AUTOCORRECT Jeez. But yeah, I need help with a spell._

Charlie was cool. Kevin had talked with her a little at Sam's party. She was into some of the same stuff he was, and she was gay, so he didn't have to try to flirt or anything, but he could still notice that her hair smelled nice, and that was... nice. She understood his videogame references and he understood her tv show references, exchanges he couldn't hope to have with Sam or Dean.

Well, maybe Sam, but that he didn't seem to have any interest in that kind of small talk. Everything was "big talk" for Sam, or more often "no talk," and Kevin wondered if it had always been that way, or if it had changed after he'd gone to hell, or if it had changed with the trials, or-

A ping. Charlie's leet speak sounded excited to be doing magic.

He texted her a couple of questions, trusted her google-fu where his own eyes were overtired. She told him how the movie ended when he questioned the accuracy of her "precious stones" research. But wiki wasn't a good source, okay, even if she had followed up on the footnoted references.

By the time he was telling her she'd remembered the end of the movie wrong, they'd figured out a basic idea for something that might protect him from getting possessed by the ghost of John Dee, and by the time he'd figured out that she'd trolled him about the ending just to mess with him, they'd worked out some latin. The rest, he'd have to work out himself, or check with Sam.

"Movie's over, munchkin. You can stop diddling your doodle." Crowley eyebrowed suggestively at Kevin's hands in his lap.

Kevin rolled his eyes _hard_ and pulled his phone up. "I'm texting."

"Sure. Hey what's your number, pet? I want to be able to send you naughty selfies."

"Screw off, Crowley," Kevin said, but it was without heat. They'd been shopping together, and there was something about that ordinary task that had kind of shelved a lot of Kevin's crap. Basically, if he thought of Crowley as something entirely different from old-Crowley, it was much easier to not want to murder him in steaming bloodrage every five seconds.

Another ping. He read the text. "No way."

"What."

"Apparently there are these books?"

"Oh. Oh." The look on Crowley's face was rapturous. "Yes. Indeed there are. Come my little dumpling-"

"Are they really about everything they did for like five years?"

"Oh yes, all the gritty nitty-"

"Uh. That's. Creepy. I'm not reading that." He looked at the phone. Texted Charlie back.

_Maybe I'll check them out. But I'm not really into that kind of stuff, so. And I have to live here._

She pinged back that it was his loss, and she gave him a kind of creepy vibe and asked him for details about what Cas and Lethaniel looked like on the couch and okay, he couldn't be choosey with his friends, and she was super nice and interesting, so. He texted her a brief goodbye, claiming he needed to call Sam with what they'd figured out. Not even a lie.

* * *

Sam got out of the shower and wanted to face-plant, but he overheard Dean talking and stopped at the door. Dean stopped, there was a moment. Sam turned on the water in the sink and waited, and Dean went on, apparently satisfied that Sam was still primping in the bathroom.

"Uh huh. About how often?" he was saying. A long pause, and Dean said, "Dude, you know that's not normal, right?" and Sam realized he was on the phone. "Just because, Cas- No. Aw man no I don't wanna talk about that-"

Yeah. Okay. No more hiding in the bathroom like a coward. Sam opened the door and came out in a towel, rubbing another one through his hair. "Talk about what?"

"Nothing."

"Uh huh." He watched Dean, stood there and dripped on the floor and watched him, because if Dean was going to do this song and dance about Sam having to keep on living, if he expected Sam to figure out how to do that, he was going to damned well do it on his own terms.

Dean rolled his eyes, went to the table to set the phone down, hit the speaker. "Cas, I got Sammy here. We need to all have a little chat."

"_Is this about the drinking?_"

"Yeah, kinda. Listen." Dean took and blew out a breath. "Cards on the table here."

Sam lifted a brow in concern, question, because cards on the table? Meant one or the other shoe was about to drop.

Dean grinned at him; Sam recognized it as his _play it off, no one knows nothin'_ face. "Call it sympathy chick flick pains. You're in therapy, _I'm_ in therapy." He turned a shit-eating grin to the phone and said, "It's called solidarity."

Sam sighed. "I'm not 'in therapy,' Dean. It's just..." He shrugged. "Medicine. I'm not interested in talking. Not to her." He still wasn't sure whether he missed Amelia or her hair or her body or her smile or whether he was glad she was gone or upset that he had to see her again in a few weeks, or-

"Fine. Whatever. But listen, I just want to check something. Back when Zachariah was messing with us, you know, you'd gone off to work in some bar or something. Right before we met back up-"

"_We were visiting a brothel_," Cas supplied helpfully.

"Yeah, I remember," Sam said. He turned away toward his bed, toward his duffel, he put a hand out to steady himself on the mattress. He remembered. And now he thought he knew what had triggered this little attempt at an emotional full monty from Dean. They'd just been talking about this, about Dean and Cas' little happy funtime, Dean letting Sam go without so much as a _let's talk about this_. And while they'd been off reenacting the 4,000 Year Old Virgin, Sam had been finding out about Lucifer and forced to drink demon blood and there'd been a girl who might have liked him before she found out he was a monster - but Dean didn't know those last parts, and he had no idea what Dean was getting at, bringing that whole crapfest up again. "What about it?" He busied himself with sorting through for a shirt.

"Zachariah showed me the future."

Sam shrugged, pulled a clean v-neck over his head. "So? We've changed whatever it was."

"_Dean, Zachariah would have shown you anything in order to_-"

"I know, I know. He's a real dick. But I just have to check, okay? The future he showed me, it's only like a year away. And you were human, Cas. And you were acting... _really_ human."

"_I was engaging in intercourse, you mean._"

"Full on orgies, dude."

"_I don't believe I would engage in orgies, Dean_."

"Yeah, and regular human dudes don't do it every three hours, either."

"Where was I in this future?" Sam asked.

"Man, Zach would have showed me anything, like Cas said-"

"Dean. Where was I?"

Sam knew - the look on Dean's face, and he knew. Zachariah had showed Dean a future in which Sam said yes to Lucifer, and Dean must have caught the moment Sam figured it out, because he didn't try to sugar-coat it, which was kind of a relief.

"He gotcha man. In that timeline, he'd been wearing you for a few years, and the city was a wreck - the _world_ was a wreck, and - I hadn't found you again after we split up back then-"

"_That's_ why you agreed to meet back up with me," Sam realized. He turned toward his duffel, turned his back on Dean, so he could hide the sting of the realization. How stupid could he be? Dean, choosing out of the blue to meet back up with him? Of course it was all about Dean trying to stop him from doing something terrible. Of course it hadn't been about something so trivial as _missing him_ or _loving him_. Sam felt sick, stupid.

"Listen, dude," Dean said. "He was messing with me, okay? Zach tried to drive us apart by showing me a future where I didn't say yes to Michael and the world burned. But you gotta know that all I heard was, 'you belong with your brother.'"

Sam nodded, but didn't look up. Dean was good at the little speeches. In the church, in Boston, in Sam's bedroom. But it didn't mean anything other than _I was cursed with you as a brother, and I'm dedicated to that hopeless, pointless task of keeping you alive._ "Right, well. You never did learn what anyone tried to teach you."

Dean frowned at him. Whatever, Dean.

"_If you're worried that that could still happen_," Cas said, "_I can assure you I will engage in no orgies_."

Dean chuckled briefly. "I don't think that's the linchpin in this mess, Cas, but thanks for the sacrifice play."

Cas was right, Sam realized, and that meant - "You're worried Lucifer could get free." He looked up at Dean, could almost see the ghost of Lucifer carving away Dean's face from his skull.

Dean's voice when he spoke again was soft, that soft growl of concern. "But it's not possible, right? Cas?"

"_There are many Seals remaining. Only sixty-six of them were required to open the cage. But the final Seal is already broken and cannot be broken again_."

"Lilith wouldn't be the first person to come back to life," Dean said.

"_Who would bring her back?_" Cas asked. "_We are all here because God wanted it. I'm certain of that_."

"Lucifer said he'd just bring me back over and over again if I killed myself to escape him," Sam supplied.

"You threatened to kill yourself?" Dean said. "When was the last time you _didn't_ want to die? Jesus-"

"What do you expect, man? Yeah, I would rather have died than say yes to him. Don't forget that I did it anyway, okay?"

"Oh, I'm not forgetting - apparently there are a _lot_ of fates worth than death for you-"

"Dean. I'm not doing this with you right now. My point is that if Lucifer could get out using the Seals again, he'd have resurrected Lilith already and we'd have been out minutes after I jumped us in. There's no way out. I'm telling you." His hands shook and he tried to hide them by pulling his duffel over and looking for jeans, but Dean sighed heavy and Sam knew he'd failed. He felt faint. He felt the rapid thump of his heart like a parasite. He blinked hard at his bag. Because.

Dean said, "Okay, settle down. I'm just trying to make sure, Jesus."

Sam didn't reply, just kept staring at the yawning mouth of a bag which emptied into black.

"Because if he did get out," Dean said, and Sam lifted his head.

"I know." Sam blinked, heavy, eyes glassed. "I know. I've already said yes."

"_No harm will come to you, Sam_," Cas said. "_Lucifer is shut tight in the cage, and I have been connecting Lethaniel and her company with my old command, and they will follow her lead when it comes to your safety. Do not fear. We would protect you to our deaths if it became necessary. But it won't. Become necessary_."

"Uh. Thanks Cas."

"Yeah, thanks," Dean said. "Listen, I gotta go. I'll call you later."

Sam stood from his bed, dumped his duffel out and sorted through the clothing, numb. To his credit, Dean glanced up but didn't get up to help him. If he marked Sam's progress with narrowed eyes, if his knuckles went white where they gripped the arm of the chair he sat in, ready to spring into action, if those hard lines in his face suddenly reappeared after a drive in the car to a job had smoothed them out, all because Sam couldn't keep his feet under him - well. Sam was pretending those things didn't bother him, remember? He was trying to remember how not to give up. He remembered being good at that, some 200 years ago.

He fished around in his bag, giving his shaking hands something to do besides send alarms through his brother sitting there on alert. But god he was tired, and his body ached, and of course he hadn't forgotten that the trials had been a difficult business, but with Lucifer and the sleeplessness and everything, this overall general feeling of just being nothing, just dragging himself from moment to moment, this constant ache and hunger and sick and the rattle in his chest of failing lungs and starving swollen heart - it'd been overshadowed. And now it was almost worse, because it was all there was.

"Sam?"

Sam closed his eyes, realized he'd stopped sorting through his duffel, had just been standing there, swaying, and he said, "I'm fine."

"Sure you are." Dean was suddenly right beside him. Sam hadn't noticed him move. His hand on Sam's back, stopping the coughing fit before it'd even started. And Lucifer in his memory had vanished, and Dean's vision wasn't going to happen, because Lilith was already dead. And.

Dean pushed at his shoulder. Sam flopped onto his bed, one leg draped awkwardly over his duffel. He felt half-asleep already, and then he felt the duffel get yanked out from under him, and a hand on his forehead, and heard the click of a light switch and it was dark and a blanket draped over him but he was laying on a blanket so it must have been Dean's and-

* * *

Dean sighed. "G'night, Sammy."

Sam was asleep practically before Dean could get a blanket over him. Still soaking wet, wearing only a tee shirt and a damp towel, and he felt warm to the touch and his hands shook; his teeth chattered, and Dean thought he didn't even realize it. He patted Sam's chest, prodded his shoulder just a little and watched Sam's face for signs of discomfort. Sleeping Sam was a lot more open about things like that. But he only made an annoyed sound and resettled, and Dean smiled.

Sam was right. Lucifer was shut up in a cage. There was no escaping. The only two people who had ever gotten someone out of the cage - Cas and Death - were on _their _side.

Dean's phone rang. Cas calling him back, wanting more advice on pleasuring women - and there'd been a time Dean had been more than willing to dispense such advice, but now the knowledge that Cas was actually _using_ it gave him the heebs. He snatched up his phone before it could ring again and potentially wake the sleeping sasquatch and said, "Cas, what-"

"_Try again, sweetie_," came the sultry feminine voice on the other end.

Dean reined himself in, threw a look at Sam. He was definitely out cold. Still. "What do you want," he hissed, letting himself out of the front door of the motel room. He stalked into the parking lot, some urge to get this conversation as far from Sam as possible.

"_I gave you a week to make up your mind. I need an answer._"

"The answer's the same sweetheart. No. Uh uh. Get bent. Not a chance. Fuck off. Is that clear enough for you?"

There was a concerned sigh. "_I have to say, I'm surprised. I thought you do anything to keep Sam safe-"_

"I am keeping him safe. And _we_ are done with demons."

"_Yeah? Then what's with the pet salesman?_"

"That's - different."

"_Because Sam said so, right? Come on, Dean. We both know you left your own moral code behind long ago. If it's for Sam, you'll do anything. Don't try to pretend. We want the same thing here._"

Dean strangled the phone, tried to keep a lid on his frustration. When he put the phone back to his ear, he had it handled. "Listen, bitch-"

"_He's rising, Dean. I know you think it isn't possible, I know you think two humans and a fallen angel somehow shut him up for good-_"

"We did."

"_And you're willing to take that risk?_"

Dean was quiet. She'd already made this argument. But he wasn't going to help her. Demons lie. And somehow Sammy always paid for Dean's mistakes. He wasn't going to get taken in again.

"_Dean?_"

"Answer's no. Don't bother calling again."

He hung up on her, resisted the urge to throw the phone into the darkness. Cas said Lucifer was shut up tight. Sam said Lucifer would have sprung himself immediately if it was as easy as raising Lilith from the dead. Dean had no idea what way was even up anymore, but he trusted Cas, he trusted Sam. He looked back at the motel room, bedside lamp still on, felt the doorkey in his pocket, struck out for the nearest bar he could walk to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Sorry! School started. I'm trying. I swear!**

* * *

**Episode Five**  
"**Time is Gonna Come"  
Chapter Two**

"DEAN!"

Dean snapped awake, flash of occupational panic, gun out and pointed, and Sam put his hands up.

"Hey hey, I surrender," Sam said.

Dean rolled his eyes, dropped his gun. Then the pounding started, the trashcan taste in his mouth, the rambling of his stomach and oh ugh wow fuck how much did he _drink_- Right. Fuck. Abaddon.

"You were dreaming," Sam said. He pinned Dean with a glare that managed bitchy and concerned all at once.

"Yeah?" Dean rubbed at his eyes, spied the glass of water and aspirin on the bedside table. What a good little brother. "What'd I say?"

Sam's glare abated, he looked away to the floor, pressed his lips together. "Nothing."

Dean swallowed the pills, eyed Sam. "Yeah. I _thought_ that was your 'nothing' face."

"Are you okay?" Sam asked, clearly just checking boxes, trying to get the topic dropped.

"What'd I say, Sam?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Brother."

"Okay...? So what's the-"

"And campfire."

Oh. Oh. He looked away. Sam turned away toward the table, shuffling papers and generally practicing advanced avoidance techniques. That explained that - Sam might have come to terms with Benny, but even Dean wasn't about to say he had to like it. He was about to drop the whole thing, but Sam said:

"And toothbrush?" Sam's voice was careful; Dean tried to decipher him. Sam, careful, continuing a line of conversation that was obviously a source of strain - Sam... still trying to find out if Dean was really okay. Despite what it might have cost _Sam_ to revisit purgatory, Benny.

Okay. Well, he didn't remember his dream, but if he'd said _toothbrush_, it was probably about that alterna-Sam, the kid who thought he'd had a black mark on his soul from age eight, the kid who had nearly gotten Dean to quit hunting. The kid who had taught him how to talk to and listen to his own brother, despite never having met the real Sam.

"Sam."

Sam didn't turn around.

But it hardly mattered. Dean couldn't tell him about his failed first deal with Death, couldn't bring himself to admit aloud that he'd given Sam up because he thought Sam had been too broken to fix. Especially not now, with this Sam standing up tall and straight at the little table, sorting through information for their case, looking alert and fully dressed, all of his own accord. Still, he had to at least try.

"Sam?"

"All that matters is that you're okay."

Dean sighed. Fine. "Whatever I was dreaming, I don't even remember it."

"You sure? You were pretty upset."

"Yeah, I'm good. What about you? Still alone in there?"

Sam nodded, finally turned back to him from the table, halfway. "Yeah. I don't remember any dreams, I'm rested. I feel..." He shrugged. "I feel _good_. You think that's it? I'm fixed?"

Dean watched him, standing there, tapping on the back of the chair with nervous energy. Sam was fully dressed all right, and now Dean smelled coffee, and when he looked, there was a bag with the pink and orange logo of the donut shop on the corner. Sam had been out, Sam had been back in. Sam was keyed up again, not unlike Boston when he'd downed a shot of _something_, thinking Dean was asleep. Not unlike alterna-Sam when he'd been meeting secretly with Ruby.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Dean said. "So you aren't tripping Lucifer anymore. You've still got this trials crap in you, right?"

"Uh, yeah."

"But you sound good. No coughing?"

"I drank like half a bottle of non-drowsy cough medicine," Sam said. He appeared to become aware of his own incessant thumb-tapping and pulled his hands into fists. "Guess it's making me jittery."

Sure. Okay. We'll go with that, Sam. Whatever makes you feel better. "So you got breakfast-"

"Yeah, like an hour ago. When did you get in last night?"

Dean scrubbed a hand over his face. He felt refreshingly terrible. Like he'd wrecked himself, and possibly gotten into a bar fight, and definitely drunk too much. Goddamn Abaddon. Shit. Shit. "I don't even know. Okay. Shower. Then we're hitting the town."

* * *

"Okay, uh, Erica," Dean said. "Thanks for talking with us."

Erica frowned. "You can help, right?"

She was pretty, young, curvy - maybe more Sam's speed since it looked like she probably had read a lot of the books on her shelves. But she also had a killer monster movie collection, so. Who knew.

"We need to do some checking around, get all the information we can. Sam says your uncle gave you our number?" Dean glanced over at Sam to refer to him; Sam was hanging back, hands in his jacket pockets, looking suspiciously like he was just waiting for Dean to be done. Dude, this was _your_ hunt. "Right Sam?"

"Yeah."

Erica looked between them, one brow up. "Y...eah. He did. Not my real uncle, more like that crazy family friend. You must have one."

Dean closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he said, "Yeah. Yeah we did."

Sam cleared his throat. "Maybe we should talk to Stephen," he suggested.

Erica narrowed her eyes at both of them. Dean shifted under her gaze. "Okay," she said, "But. I told you, he's-"

"Yeah, we know," Dean said.

"Okay then. I'll go get him." She excused herself toward the staircase, calling up as she went, "Stevie!"

Dean rounded on Sam. "What's with you?"

Sam startled out of his thoughts. "What are you talking about?"

"You're the one who wanted to take this job, Sam. And now you're wallflowering?"

Sam shrugged. "Since when do you have a problem taking point?"

"We're trying to get you back in the saddle, Sam. That _is_ what we're doing here, right? Easy hunt, talk to the locals, kill a... whatever this thing is."

"You want us to talk in unison at her, Dean? Get serious."

Dean rolled his eyes, but yeah, Sam, we all noticed how you just completely didn't answer the question. Why _are_ we here?

"Well, why don't you take the lead with 'Stevie' then?"

"Maybe I'll just go wait in the car-"

Dean stepped into Sam's space, hand on his shoulder. Sam grimaced, brief crease of pain over his forehead, but Dean didn't let him go, shook him just a little. "You're staying right here. This is _our_ case. Sam. You get that if you're not on this hunt with me, there's no hunt. Right? We're only here because of you."

Sam shook his head, backed up a step out of Dean's orbit, hands up. "Sorry. I thought we were investigating some poor girl's brother's paranormal memory loss. Didn't mean to drag you out against your will-"

"That's not what I'm saying. Would you stop intentionally misunderstanding me for like two seconds? I'm saying that _I'm_ following _your_ lead here. And it seems like you'd rather be anywhere else. And if that's _true_, just tell me, and we'll go home. It's that simple."

Sam frowned at him, little lines of doubt. "We belong here. I'm in. I'm sorry-"

Dean cut him off with a wave of his hand. "If you say you're sorry one more time, I'm gonna smack you."

Sam watched him a moment, maybe deciphering truth from white lie reassurances - but it _was_ truth, Dean was pretty sure. Whatever Sam wanted to do, even if it wasn't hunting, they'd do. But whatever Sam was looking for, he apparently didn't find, because he sighed and turned and said, "Can you just handle the interview? I didn't sleep much."

Okay, baby steps. Because Dean still remembered the shock of realization in mirror world, a twenty-two year old Sam who talked to people and smiled, versus this thirty-one year old anti-socialite.

"Fine. But you're doing all the book work."

"Fine." Sam faded back. "Oh, Dean-" he said then, just as Dean was turning back to greet Erica and Stevie coming down the stairs.

Dean stopped short. Little slow on the heads-up, Sammy.

Stevie was... okay, short bus was a mean way of saying it, right? He didn't want to be mean, there was a right way to talk about it, right? Stevie had an open round face, little eyes behind his glasses. Round all over, actually, and not too tall. Erica said he was twenty-seven, but he looked more like a baby-faced, if balding, teen. And he looked upset.

"Sorry," Erica said. "He's usually so happy. But he keeps forgetting things."

"Uhm." Dean was staring. That was rude. Right?

"No apology necessary," Sam said, and Dean exhaled in relief. Sam was going to step in. He was better at this interviewing crap anyway. He turned to let Sam take point, frowned when Sam stayed where he was, admiring little statuettes on the mantle. Sam eyebrowed at him expectantly.

Dean turned back, gestured to the couch. "Hello, Stevie," he said, taking a seat in the opposing armchair where he could watch Sam. "My name's Dean, and this is my brother Sam," he said slowly. He looked up at Sam in reference, to find Sam giving him a stern look he recognized meant he was doing something wrong. Dean shrugged, an obvious invitation to come and do better, but Sam just sighed and looked off. Not good. Not Sam.

"So you're forgetting stuff, huh?"

Stevie nodded.

"Can you tell me about what happened the night you first started forgetting?"

Stevie rocked forward a little, hands hanging off his knees. "Wa- wa- wa-" and then he was visibly upset again, and Erica put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. She leaned down to murmur in his ear and he shook his head and pawed at his tears.

"He's upset," Erica said. "He struggled with dysfluency as a kid. It comes back when he's upset. Come on, baby."

Stevie wheeled his head to the side, away from Erica, looking super annoyed and give Sam some nice round cheeks and half a neck and it'd be the spitting image of him pitching a fit over _Sammy_.

"Let me guess," Dean said. "He hates it when you call him that?"

Erica chuckled. "Better mad than sad, I always say." She slid the hand on his shoulder down to his ribs, gave him a little tickle. Stevie laughed and pushed her hand away. "I knew you were hiding in there, baby. Hey. Forgetting things is scary, huh?" Stevie nodded. "Well, these guys are gonna find who did this to you and fix it, okay?" Stevie looked at Dean. Twisted around to look at Sam. Sighed and sat back against the couch.

"Later," he said. His big tongue filled his mouth. Had that R speech impediment that made him sound like a cartoon. _Be nice, Dean,_ a voice, Sam's voice, in his head.

Erica flopped onto the couch next to him, petted his hair. "No can do, kiddo."

"You're losing your memories, right?" Dean said. "What if you lose this one, and we got nothing to go on?" He looked up for support from Sam to find Sam trying to cut Dean off with his hand across his throat. On the couch, Stevie's eyes had gone wide. Shit, right. Because he was already freaking over memory loss. Whoops.

"S'a lady!" Stevie said. "A lady, she said I could help her. Sh-she said I ... couldbeahero I said yes I would help-!"

His speech was so deliberate, careful, it rocked back and forth until he got stalled out, and then it came in a burst of air and noise that Dean had to work to decipher. A lady, huh. Dean nodded.

"Okay. I think we're done here."

"Dean," Sam started, stepping forward. He gestured with his eyebrows at the mess Dean had caused, Stevie crying into Erica's arms.

"Listen. _If_ this is what you think it is, then we can help."

Erica looked up. "What do you mean, _if_?"

Dean plastered on a smile. "I'm not trying to say anything here, okay. Just. Sometimes the human mind plays tricks, tries to make sense out of whatever you're afraid of. It's okay. We all get afraid-"

"Dean," Sam said, tone of warning, fatigued. He finally came around from his watchful spot behind the couch, crouched to address Erica and Stevie. "I'm so sorry. He's just trying to-"

Stevie looked up at Sam, sniffing back tears. "Are you sad?"

Sam raised his brows. "What?"

"Are you sad?" Stevie said again, his W-sounding R. He reached a hand up to touch Sam's hair. Dean frowned.

"Stevie!" Erica said, clearly shocked. She tugged him back from Sam. "I'm so sorry. He knows better, but-"

"It's okay to be sad," Stevie said.

"I'm not," Sam said, but he sounded taken aback, and Dean wasn't stupid, okay. He knew Sam was acting cagey. And as Dean just just painfully learned, Sam hadn't made any real attempt to connect with people, for like, _years_ - still, just standing on the sidelines when Dean was screwing up this whole special ed kid thing? That was beyond abnormal. Maybe Sam _was_ sad. Maybe Stevie had some shining thing where his IQ should have been.

"Thanks. We'll call if we have any more questions," Dean said, tugging Sam back to his feet. Sam was watching Stevie, and Stevie was watching Sam, and Dean propelled his brother to the door, followed by Erica.

"I'm sorry," she said. "He knows better than to touch without asking. He's really affectionate. Just - not with men. Never before."

Dean shrugged, trying to make light. "Sam's basically a girl-"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Call if Stevie remembers anything else, okay?" he said. Once they were out of earshot, Sam walked ahead of him toward the car and said, "You act like that, and you still wonder why I didn't tell you about seeing Lucifer right away? You're unbelievable."

* * *

"Okay..." Dean said, hunching down low behind the steering wheel. He watched the parking lot of their motel. "What the hell?"

"They were just protecting Enoch," Sam mimicked, hunkering down as far in the passenger seat as he could.

"Shaddup," Dean replied, but Sam thought it sounded tired.

The Feds were easy to spot - like, the way he and Dean _wanted_ to be tagged as Feds, these guys probably didn't, but they couldn't hide it. The stiff posture, the alert awareness of their surroundings? The pattern of their "random" paths, like they were just average citizens who made a circuit of the block every few minutes like clockwork. No dog needed to be walked that often. No one delivered flowers to the same office across the street from the motel once every ten minutes. They'd been sitting around the corner in the motel parking lot for half an hour, and Sam's head was starting to pound. He needed his bag.

"They aren't going away," Sam said.

"Got a plan?"

"You don't?"

"Course I do," Dean said. "I just wondered if you - nevermind. Come on."

It was easy to go in a side door, past the pool. It was easy to avoid the janitor who was obviously not a janitor-

"Jesus," Dean said once they were around the corner. "I think I'm insulted."

"I know. They could have at least put the right logo on the guy's uniform."

Dean looked at him like he was speaking french. "You saw that? I just saw the haircut and thought - Okay, nevermind."

Sam grinned. Then the headache pounded on him and he put his hand on the wall to steady himself.

"Whoa, hey-" Dean's voice was in his ear. The sound of it made him sick, so loud, so concerned like Sam was a weak, pathetic thing.

"I'm okay," Sam said. "I'm fine." He smiled again, pushed away from the wall. It was just a headache. Just nausea. Just a jangling down his spine and into his limbs, feet and hands on fire. "Tired," he said. "Didn't sleep-"

"Yeah. You said."

Dean didn't look convinced. He watched Sam another long moment; Sam couldn't figure out what he wanted from him. He pushed past Dean to check the coast, then said, "Okay, time to make a break for it."

* * *

_It's cute that you think you can ignore me._

Dean stared hard at the bathroom door, ready to lose his phone at the first sign Sam might be coming back out. He'd been dodging her calls, but texts popped right up on the screen of his stupid smart phone thing. More messages followed. Vibe, message, vibe, message.

_Watch him. Doesn't he look better? _

_He's being strengthened. Two guesses as to how. _

_He's rising, Dean, and if you want your baby brother safe? You'll help me keep Lucifer in his cage. _

_I'll be in touch._

Sam came out. Dean looked absorbed in his phone, madly deleting the texts while Sam stepped around him to get a look. By some miracle, he'd done it and managed to get some stupid game up on the screen before Sam could get an eyeful, and then Sam just rolled his eyes and went to his duffel to root around. Dean stared at him, at the headache lines fading from his forehead, fatigue swept out of his shoulders. The slight cough gone.

"So what do you think it is?" Sam asked.

He'd grabbed his bag and headed into the bathroom immediately on getting back into the room, while Dean glared at the door, imagining.

He should have just asked. Just asked, and tried to make it come out understanding. _It's okay, Sammy. We'll get through it together, whatever. Demon blood makes you feel better, I get it. The trials are more than any person could stand for as long as you have. But let's rethink this solution, okay? Because it's not as temporary as you think, this addiction._

But he couldn't make the words come out. Because the truth was, Sam had been _dying_ of illness before the church. He'd been pushing so hard just to get out of bed, and then Lucifer showed up. Sam was on last legs, and this _drug_ made him feel okay again, and it was obvious even to Dean that if he didn't do this right, if he came at it like Sam was an addict, a worthless pathetic junkie, Sam would sink and Dean would never get him back.

And what right did Dean have to judge, when he was getting texts from a knight of Hell?

"Dean?" Sam looked at him with concern. "You with me, kiddo?"

Dean quirked up half a grin. _Kiddo_ meant Sam was _really_ worried. "Yeah, no, what?"

Sam took a step toward him, head tilted like he could see what was wrong with Dean better that way. "I was just asking what you thought the monster of the week was. You okay?"

"Am _I_ okay?"

Sam's look of concern vanished, replaced by downcast eyes, the curled lip like Dean had said something hurtful, and Sam was shoving it down, wheeling it back, breathing it away. He looked back up and said, "I'm gonna head to the library, look through the newspaper archives. I'll be back in a few hours."

"You can't go out there alone-"

"I can't go to the _library_?"

Dean blew out a breath. "I _mean_, apparently we're on Fed radar. We don't go anywhere without backup. Either of us."

* * *

So they both ended up in the library, shuffling through old newspapers, Sam on microfiche duty, because he kept sneezing and Dean was worried about his currently non-existent cough, not that he'd tell Sam that was it.

His phone vibrated again. Another text. He glanced at it. Another promise, another plea.

Sam shifted. "Man, put your phone on silent. That's annoying."

Dean's phone vibed again: _Oh, he's irritable, isn't he? How long since his last fix?_

Dean looked around, flash panic. She could see them. Fuck. Another message. _Aw, that's cute._ Dean turned the thing off and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Got anything?" he said, leaning back from the table to whisper at Sam's head.

"Not yet. There was a jumper in 1965, but..."

"But?"

"He didn't die. The bridge isn't high enough. He got rescued by a passerby, died of natural causes twenty years later."

Dean huffed. "So, probably not a ghost."

"Not so far." Sam leaned back, stretched a bit. Dean heard his breath hitch, wondered if it was his shoulder giving him problems or some other issue Dean didn't know about, or hell, maybe it was just Dean's imagination - Sam was fine. Too fine, Abaddon's words rang in Dean's head. _Watch him. He's being strengthened._ Sam left off stretching, turned in his seat to part face Dean, and Dean turned toward him. "What if..."

"What."

"What if it's a Nix?"

"Water spirit? Here?"

"Nebraska's almost 40% German ancestry-"

"Yeah, but Nix lure their victims into the water and drown them. This one's stealing memories."

"What if there've been more victims, and Stevie's the only one who's gotten away?"

"Stevie Shortbus got away when normal people didn't?"

"Dean!" Sam admonished, and Dean did feel bad.

"Sorry. But my point stands." He watched Sam's face, wanted to throw him a bone, wanted Sam to be right about something. "It's 13% Irish. Whatcha got?"

Sam hmmed. "Kelpie?"

Dean thought a second, chased down this errant memory. _Yes _- "Nine children were dragged into the water, the tenth escaped," Dean said in triumph, a little too loudly.

"By cutting off his own hand, yeah. But. That's the Scottish version, and." Sam's shoulders sagged. "Kelpies don't steal memories. It's probably not a water spirit. Nevermind."

"Hey. You went there because of Lethe, right? Water and memories, big-time connection. It wasn't a stupid idea."

"You don't have to coddle me, Dean. I'm back in the saddle, okay?"

"I'm not - Okay, I am. Yeah. I am. You're coming back from something, okay? Something serious, and I almost lost you, twice, and whatever I can do, I'm gonna do. I'm not apologizing for it."

"And you shouldn't apologize. I'm just saying, you don't have to do anything. I got this."

* * *

In the end, they had a list: Nix or kelpie, troll, mermaid, ghost, just in case.

"Okay, but mermaids don't exist, Sam," Dean said, driving them south out of city limits to the bridge on Linden Road where Stevie said it had happened. It was coming on evening, and the little village of Holmesville sat sleepy in front of them, sparsely populated there a couple of miles out of Beatrice. Up ahead, the rush of water through the power plant dam oversang the crickets.

Sam hung his elbow out of the window and breathed in through his nose. "I seem to recall you said the same thing about angels."

"Okay, good point-"

"And most lore says they're related to sirens, which we know exist-"

"I said good point, Jesus."

Sam snickered in the passenger seat, looking over their map. "Okay, left. Left, Dean!"

"I got it, Christ."

"Slow down, slow down." Sam leaned forward in his seat, looking across the bridge as Dean crept up on it. "There. Stevie said the 'lady' talked to him on a big boulder by the end of the bridge. That's gotta be it."

The electronics cut out halfway across the bridge and the impala rolled to a stop.

Dean sighed. "Awesome."

"You'd think we'd learn to leave the car and walk."

"You'd think. Okay, ready?"

"Nope. Let's go."

Shotguns filled with salt, a protective charm Sam had yanked out of his - uh, brain, and earplugs. If it was a troll, they'd just have to try to beat on it and run. Dean really hoped it wasn't a troll. It had taken the form of a lady, and Dean hoped that meant no troll. But ghost, kelpie, or mermaid - they were prepared for.

Dean tapped Sam's shoulder and they split up. They'd rock paper scissored for who'd be bait, and Sam had won, which meant he got to go hide - in safety - while Dean walked the bridge, looking tasty. Dean looked around as he went, hands out and empty, but in position to pull the shotgun when the time came. He made a show of looking up and down the bridge, left and right to the water, but it was mostly just an excuse to watch Sam's position.

Sam who was "back in the saddle," but who still sagged against the wall when his mystery drug wore off, still woke up choking on blood - but he was standing tall when he'd loped off toward cover. He was standing up straight, he was carrying his weight, he was - _being strengthened_. He glanced over at Sam's cover again, and he wondered, and he worried that she was right, and that Sam was in danger, and that Lucifer was going to claw his way back into his brother.

And he went down with a thump, a weight on top of him, and his head met the road and he blacked out for a second. _Fuck_.

"Dean!"

Dean pushed up, dislodged the thing - a person, just a person, well, a woman. With strength. She whirled off of him but didn't let go of his arm. She grabbed and didn't let go. She looked human, but of course, that just narrowed the options down from four to... well. Four. If you counted the East Asian shapeshifter mermaid stories or the Slavic shapeshifter troll stories. So. Shit.

"What-"

But she'd got her hand to his head and suddenly he couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't-

"Let him go!"

_Sammy. Run._

"I don't think so," she said. "I need his head. I need what's in it."

"His memories, right?" Sam said.

She shook Dean by the head. Dean felt dumb and slow, his tongue thick, mute, and he blinked.

"I need them." She pressed her clawed fingernails into his face, drawing blood. God, it hurt. But he couldn't move, or react, or reassure Sam who was yelling for her to stop, stop. "What'll you give me?"

"Just let him go," he said, and stepped forward when he said it, toward Dean, watching Dean, and Dean managed to move his mouth, to try to tell him not to be so friggin stupid all the time.

She stopped. "Who's this kid to you?" she asked Dean.

Dean watched the guy. He drew up his energy and said, "I don't know."

The guy stopped in his tracks, stared. "No. No no-"

"Yes. Now what will you give me?"

"What do you want?"

_Don't give her anything, kid. Whoever you are. Don't do it._

The woman leaned forward, sniffed the air. "_Your_ memories. You got lifetimes in there. Hundreds of years of memory. I want them."

The guy stared. Looked at Dean. Licked his lips. "Fine-"

"Promise!"

"Fine, I promise!"

"Good-"

"Stay right there," the guy said, brandishing a gun. _Holy shit, a gun would be so useful right now_. "Put his memory back first."

She cackled. That's what she did. Straight up movie witch bitch cackle. "You were a lawyer in a previous life, weren'tcha."

The kid muttered something.

She pressed in again, Dean bit back a manly yelp as the memory flooded back in, Sammy, there holding a gun on this lady, and he'd just made a deal for Dean's release, and _oh Sammy_-

She tossed Dean to the ground and flew at Sam, light on her feet and Dean filed that away because they still didn't know what she was, and then he rolled and pulled the shotgun he suddenly remembered he had, primed it and -

Sam fell backwards in a mad scramble to get away from her _and _get out of Dean's line of fire, and he fired upwards at her and Dean fired upwards at her, and she shrieked and vanished.

_Vanished_.

"Well, shit."

Sam looked at him. "Yep. So. That happened."


End file.
